/sci/ - Science & Math

Engineering.

Mathematics. Any trained monkey can do physics

>>6454026
>Implying they aren't the same thing

physics is relevant maths
maths is masturbation

“Physics is to mathematics like sex is to masturbation.”

—Richard Feynman, a physicist

"engineering is to physics as civil partnerships are to marriage"

>>6454043
Is he saying physics is more revolting and less satisfying?

>>6454058
He's saying you'll be doing a lot of math in undergrad.

>>6454087
LOL

>>6454087
pls let this change in grad school :^(

>>6454026
Pure mathematics? Like a lot of people have already said, pure mathematics isn't immediately useful.

Physics is where it's at.

economics and CS

>>6455172
>grad school
>implying you have any free time at all

physics is easier than maths because there's less maths in physics than in maths and that's the only thing about physics that is hard

>>6455229
>implying math is hard

Math is just a simple tool.

>>6455235
>has never had to do a hard maths question

basically every maths stdent at a top university would be able to study physics instead if they wanted, but only probably about 10% of the physics students would be intelligent enough to study maths rather than physics.

>>6455239
What's a "hard math question"?

>>6455239
>making up unrealistic statistics to justify your demonstrably wrong beliefs

Try harder.

They are both better than posting in a troll thread.

>>6455249
they aren't unrealistic at all.
If you disagree it's because you've never been to a top university like Cambridge or Harvard and so don't know the gulf in talent between maths students and physics students at top universities.

>>6455244
For instance, one good indicator of talent is to ask questions on material that everyone should be familiar with. This is the motivation behind highschool Olympiads.

However the international physics Olympiad is a lot easier than the international maths Olympiad, and whereas most IMO competitors could if they so wished, focus on the physics Olympiad and do very well, most of the physics Olympiad competitors would not be intelligent enough to do well at the IMO.

One way you can think about it is that the if we were to look at the distribution of talent for maths and physics, maths would have a much fatter upper tail than physics.
So basically the top 1% or 0.1% of maths students are significantly more intelligent and better at problem solving than the corresponding percentage of physics students.

Which is why Cambridge and other top universities accordingly cater their maths courses to these elite, , where as their physics courses are designed to be accessible by a group of people who are less strong on average.

Every Physics student can go into math
But not every math student can go in to Physics

I've found this to be a generally accurate guideline. I've never met a physics major who had trouble in his math courses. But some of the brightest math students out there sometimes have trouble in physics. I know one math major who was essentially a child prodigy. Just to give you some perspective, when he and I took differential geometry together, he was only a senior in high school. The kid could basically do math in his sleep. So it really surprised me when he mentioned that he was struggling in physics 2.

From what I've seen, the mathematicians who go into physics usually stay on the periphery, working on theoretical or computational problems. Mathematicians are really good at computer modelling, as well as...well, math. So I suppose that things like string theory, theoretical particle physics, general relativity, etc., come easy to them. But I doubt you'd find many mathematicians designing the electronics for high energy detectors, or working on other such experimental problems.

I could certainly see a physicist going into math. In fact I happen to have a math degree, so I think I could work fairly competently as a professional mathematician. But I've got to ask: why would you want to do this? Professional mathematicians work on boring problems, like proving that some theorem about minimal surfaces can stand even if the fourteenth lemma of corollory X isn't assumed. Maybe it's just me, but compared to physics, math just seems a little dull.

>>6455259
Math olympiads are nothing more than glorified sudoku tier puzzles. The only "talent" they require is the ability to willfully engage in time wasting activities.

>tfw engineer and have to deal with poor mathematicians and physicists arguing about purity

>>6455270
that's the kind of thing a low-IQ butthurt plodder with mediocre problem solving ability would say.

If you were good at maths in highschool you would have been able to do well enough to get into your country's team.

but your mind is not sharp enough nor your insight and intuition keen enough.

>>6455304
I have an IQ of 170 and I taught myself the entire maths BSc curriculum during high school. I don't think I need to apologize for not wasting my time with petty made up puzzles. My school never gave a shit about these contests anyways. Only once was I asked to participate. I solved the first set of problems instantly but then I was too uninterested to continue that shit. Go be a worthless neckbeard somewhere else. If you base your self-worth on the ability to solve meaningless riddles, then you must have some mental issues.

>>6455239
>only probably about 10% of the physics students
kek

>>6455308
>I hace an IQ of 170 and I...
Kek, over SD 75, i'm sure.
Also, by chance, are you a 300k starting boy

>>6455311
this looks at students at average universities as well as good universities.
If you only looked at the likes of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT you would find that the maths students are stronger

>>6455308
If we assume that what you say is true and you did indeed have enough problem solving ability to do the IMO then all you're ding is agreeing with the hypothesis.
people who are strong can do the IMO, people who aren't strong cannot.

>>6455338
>If you only looked at the likes of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT you would find that the maths students are stronger
Have any evidence for that claim?

>>6455338
>then all you're ding is agreeing with the hypothesis.
Nice! For schooling someone with an iq of 170, you gain 170 schooled points, your iq increases by one, and his iq decreases by one. Keep it up!

>>6455311

#rekt

>>6455229
>that's the only thing about physics that is hard

wow you must be such a badass! what field will you decide to lay down your wisdom in tomorrow? maybe biology? politics? are you going to cure cancer? perhaps end world hunger?

Physics is much MUCH harder than math

And a bunch of studies have proved that {Physics majors have highers IQs than Math majors

>>6455332
⇒Also, by chance, are you a 300k starting boy
I'm not a boy and I already have enough money. Not even going for a math PhD.

>>6455338
⇒all you're ding is agreeing with the hypothesis.
Is reading comprehension really that hard? Your original hypothesis was that being good at contests like IMO was the most reliable predictor for mathematical aptitude. I demonstrated how irrelevant contests are and that success in contests is merely a matter of patience and interest in this particular kind of puzzles.

⇒people who are strong can do the IMO
People who are "strong" can do a lot of things. People who are successful in academia can also figure out how to clean a toilet. By your reasoning the ability to clean toilets is therefore a great predictor for academic success. How hard did you fail the logic section of the IQ test?

⇒people who aren't strong cannot.
They can. Math contests are just a matter of how much time you are willing to waste. Solving a lot of sudokus will make you better at sudokus but not at other problems. Being good at math contests doesn't make you a good mathematician. Only doing real math does.

>>6455311

slightly buttmad mathematician reporting in

where did you get this information

>>6455359
>By your reasoning the ability to clean toilets is therefore a great predictor for academic success.

It is. Someone who can't figure out how to clean a toilet is very unlikely to be successful academically.

as a mathematician with a strong interest in physics i have taken modules in quantum theory and relativity (special and general)

every physics student i've spoken to hasn't looked at manifolds or the necessary stuff to understand relativity at anywhere near the level of the maths course

i am talking about undergrad level only

>>6455359
>Solving a lot of sudokus will make you better at sudokus but not at other problems. Being good at math contests doesn't make you a good mathematician. Only doing real math does.

"Math contests" are not analogous to sudokus because the whole point to a math contest is making you solve novel problems in novel ways. It is a measure of how well you can think, not what methods you have memorized.

And please, tell us what "real math" is?

>>6455371
There is nothing "novel" in contest math problems. It's always variations of the same few dozen techniques you can practice ad nauseam. The problems have been constructed by other people in such a way that they can be solved with knowledge of these techniques. You cannot compare this to new and unsolved problems.

>>6454043
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw

>>6455311
I wonder how much this chart is reflecting a difference in difficulty versus simply showing that highly intelligent people tend to find physics more interesting.

Physics

Physics is one of the many fields of study that implement mathematics.

Other fields that implement mathematics are computing, finance, and basically every job function to some extent.

Physics helps us understand the world. It could not stand without Mathematics. It also hasn't had any significant contributions in ~70 years.

Mathematics is a fundamental building block to everything we lean.
[rage]
OP YOU'RE A FUCKING RETARD THIS QUESTION IS SO DUMB THEY ARE BOT IMPORTANT AND WORK AND IN HAND[/rage]

>>6454026
Define "better." You can't just ask us which field is better without asking what you mean by better.
The one that makes more money? The one that has more practical aspects? The one that is more logical and rigorous? The one that gets you more women? Which one?

>>6454026
Mathematics discovers things
Physics proves it decades/centuries later

>>6455345
No, but I can asure you that that is the case having studied at Cambridge myself. It's the opposite of controversial to say that maths is the hardest course. and that maths students would easily be able to swap to study phsyics but few physiscs students would be intelligent enough to do the maths course.

>>6455359
You demonstrated no such thing. You said that you found IMO contests easy and boring because you're so good at maths, but you did absolutely nothing to prove that they do not require problem solving ability or ask formulaic caluclations htat can be solved with simple algorithms like Sudoku puzzles.

infact that claim is patently absurd. It's because IMO questions require insight and problem solving ability and intelligence that most people are not good enough at maths to do them, even though they know all the mathematical content necessary to solve the problem. It really sounds as though you call the IMO's problems "contrived" or "not real" or "made up" simply because their content is on pre-university topics, which is juvenile and narrow minded. A hard problem is a hard problem no matter what field of mathematics it is about.
I suspect you'd also cry about Putnam's problems being "made up".

If IMO was simply a test of patience as you say then just anyone would be able to get in if they put in enough effort, but that is equally absurd. Only students with a high amount of mathematical talent manage to compete in the IMO, and those people with talent then have to put in a lot of work to sharpen themselves as much as possible to their very limit. The people who compete in the IMO already have to practice extremely hard (like any athlete or high-level competitor) on top of their top-end levels of talent and intelligence.

So no, your claims have not been demonstrated and they are wrong.

It's extremely unlikely that someone accomplished in mathematics like you claim could ever make such stupid claims about the IMO.

>>6456315
Physics discovers things
Mathematics steals it decades/centuries later

FTFY

>>6456511
Example: functional calculus, calculus of variations. Functional integrals.
Physicists figured this shit out before mathematicians bothered to get off their lazy asses and make it mathematically rigorous.